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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (7736)	9/12/2003 10:10:32 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793800

NBC - FIRST READ Both parties’ uncertainty over what the 2004 election currently is and will be about manifests itself in Democrats’ flavor-of-the-month craze and hankering for nominees of yore, and Republican National Committee talking points about presidential approval numbers. The Democratic field is overshadowed for the forseeable future by a retired general who only just aligned himself with the party and is a blank slate apart from his military service, and by Bill Clinton’s return to the trail. (For fun, add in Zogby numbers showing Gore and Bush in a statistical dead heat, though Gore has said repeatedly he’s not running.) The Republican National Committee issues a “polling fact sheet” about President Bush’s settling approval numbers. Bulleted: Matthew Dowd predicted it would happen; recent presidents have won re-election with worse numbers at this stage in their first terms; and ”[t]he country is very polarized and this election is going to be extremely close. Not since vice-president’s bush’s victory in 1988, has a president received more than 50% of the popular vote.” Just in time for new USA Today/CNN/Gallup numbers showing Bush’s approval at its lowest since September 11, 2001: 52%. It’s the out party, however, whose head-vs.-heart angst over how best to defeat Bush gets spotlighted. Clinton appears with seven of the (currently) nine candidates at Sen. Tom Harkin’s steak fry in Indianola, IA on Saturday; Gephardt, Moseley Braun, Kerry, Edwards, Dean, Kucinich, and Graham address the expected crowd of 5,000 starting at 4:45 pm ET. Clinton, introduced by Harkin at 7:00 pm ET, speaks for the balance of the hour. Clinton then campaigns with Gray Davis in Los Angeles on Sunday. And the Wall Street Journal says the “planned 2004 release of his memoir, with fanfare likely exceeding that for his wife’s, ‘would be dumb and distracting’ to Democrats’ presidential candidates, says an adviser to one. ‘As a party, we’ve got to get out from under the shadow of these two.’ Chairman McAuliffe talks with Clinton and tells hand-wringers the book will be out by May, not in the campaign’s final stretch.” Meanwhile, the media and the Democratic Establishment get themselves into a twist over Clark’s prospective candidacy. Why the frenzy? It would be a story because of what it would symbolize: lingering dissatisfaction with the current field; some damage to Kerry’s rationale for his own candidacy; the prospect of another Southern candidate hurting Edwards (scheduled to announce, himself, on the 16th) and Graham; the prospect of another CW-defying, Internet-boosted, personality-driven candidacy like Dean’s. A challenger to Bush with serious national security creds. But would Clark capture Democratic voters’ attention and imaginations as Dean has? How soon after an announcement would the stories appear probing his military service and recent statements? Is there room left for another unconventional campaign? Is there money left for another candidate, period? Some imminent tests of the media’s Clark-and-Clinton fixation: Gephardt gives a big policy speech in Des Moines at 1:00 pm today with the goal of affecting the race, says embed Priya David. And the Wall Street Journal says Dean’s big tax policy speech could come as early as Wednesday. (“Lieberman plans speech on ‘middle class squeeze,’ to differ further with Dean.” Expect welcome-to-the-club comments from Kerry...) msnbc.com